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7 December 2022
The coastal section at Esterillos Oeste, Costa Rica
Callan documents a geological stroll along the coast of Esterillos Oeste, in central southern Costa Rica, investigating the sequence of sediment in the Punta Judas Formation (Mid-Miocene) exposed there. Fossils, sedimentary structure, diagenetic features, structural deformation, and modern weathering all make prominent appearances.
26 January 2018
Friday fold: eastern Andes
This image graces the cover of the new report, Challenges and opportunities for research in tectonics: Understanding deformation and the processes that link Earth systems, from geologic time to human time. A community vision document submitted to the U.S. National Science Foundation: Make it bigger by clicking it The photo is of a landscape in the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes, southern Peru, showing folded Permian carbonates cut by a …
11 October 2016
A virtual field trip to Portrush, Northern Ireland
One of my favorite places in Northern Ireland is the east side of the peninsula that hosts the tourist town of Portrush. There, two early schools of geological thought engaged in a battle. The opposing sides were: the Neptunists, who thought all stratified rocks, and in particular basalt, must form from precipitation from the sea, and the Plutonists, who thought some rocks, including basalt, formed through intrusion of molten rock …
10 June 2016
Green River Formation stromatolite – a virtual sample
Today concludes a weeklong run of virtual samples. For the past five days, I’ve been presenting examples of a visualization combination that leverages the advantages of the GIGAmacro system with the 3D ‘virtual sample’ perspective of the Sketchfab-hosted model: the same sample presented in both formats. Today, we finish up with a stromatolite from the hypersaline Wilkins Creek member of the Eocene-aged Green River Formation of southwestern Wyoming: Link GIGAmacro by …
18 May 2016
Pillow basalt exposures in the Columbia River basalts
Pillow basalts form when mafic lava erupts underwater. Here are several examples from the Miocene Columbia River flood basalts, a large igneous province in eastern Washington state.
2 May 2016
3D models to spin and twist
More 3D models: digital facsimiles of real rock samples. Check them out and explore! Clinker from the Powder River Basin, Wyoming: Ripple marks from the Rose Hill Formation, West Virginia: Meta-komatiite from the Red Lake Greenstone Belt, northern Ontario, Canada:
14 September 2011
Is “Tertiary” archaic?
Jack and Drumlin are visiting for the day from their usual home.
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.